‘True Blood:’ Grosser and grosser

Let’s jump right in. Lorena bought the big one — yay! She was chowing down on Sookie, and Bill, with his last burst of strength, rose up and pulled her off his beloved before collapsing in a heap. Then Lorena basically goaded Sookie into staking her. Alas, the loss of the tiresome Lorena isn’t quite the cause of jubliation it might be, since Debbie is sticking around, and she is basically Alcide’s Lorena. (I’d like to see them at least balance that out a bit — for every 5 minutes we have to endure Debbie, I think we deserve at least 10 minutes of Jessica.) Alcide had a chance to shoot her, but couldn’t do it — instead, he locked her in the gore-drenched barn and fled with Sookie, Tara and the tarp-wrapped Bill.

The werewolves who guard the King’s place — werewolves who, for some reason, permitted Sookie and Tara to race across the grounds unmolested — suddenly appeared, and Alcide hit one of them with his van. There will undoubtedly be repercussions there. Poor Alcide — it seems like he’s already repaid whatever debt he owed Eric several times over already. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who deserves the kind of drama he’s being sucked into.

Lorena and the V-cravers left Bill in pretty bad shape. He was close to death when Sookie and Tara loaded him into the van, and Tara tried to convince Sookie to let him go. Sookie snapped at Tara (surprise!) and insisted that she would ride with him. (Exactly where they were going wasn’t clear; and the urgency of the enterprise clearly was never an issue for Alcide, who took time to get dressed before they left and also pulled over to relieve himself on the way.) Sookie sliced open her arm with a saw to let Bill drink of her life-saving blood, which turned out to be a huge mistake — Bill went berserk and basically all but killed her, enraging Tara, who kicked him out of the van. The sun no longer seems to be an issue for Bill — I’m guessing that’s somehow tied in with Sookie’s magical, type-less blood.

Sookie was left comatose. Before we could fully appreciate a silent Sookie — so nice! — we went into her mind, where she traveled to a dreamy, gauzy place where a woman named Claudine seemed to know precisely what Sookie is. That pool of water-like-substance beamed the same kind of light that sometimes bursts from Sookie’s hands. Even so, Sookie didn’t stay. She was brought back to this level of existence by Bill’s blood (apparently, Sookie was in the worst-supervised ICU in the area); when she opened her eyes and saw him, she immediately started screaming. Not a good sign for that relationship.

Meanwhile, Eric learned what Sookie is, though he didn’t share that info with us. (Well-played, Alan Ball.) He got the info from the suddenly chatty Hadley — the caged Queen commanded her to tell Eric nothing, an order which might have had more weight if Eric’s teeth weren’t buried in her throat at the time. She whispered the answer to Eric, who was surprised by what he heard. Anybody want to hazard a guess about what it was? The only thing I’m sure of on that score is that the story of Sookie’s birth that Jason shared was a lot of hooey. Though I’m sure Jason doesn’t know that.

This was an awfully bloody episode. Beside’s Lorena’s graphic departure, Bill’s feasting on Sookie and Eric feasting on Hadley, there was another glimpse of poor, tortured Pam, right before Eric arrived to rat out the Queen, who was also in tow, for coming up with the whole V-selling scheme. The Magister accused Eric of treason for blabbing; Eric then noted that his loyalty is now to the King, who made his own entrance then. Russell does have a flair — after gabbing a bit with the Magister, whom he plainly disdains, he whirled about, released Pam and chained up the Magister. After some more chatter (not to mention the worst wedding ever), he beheaded the Magister. There are bound to be repercussions there, too — I’m looking forward to seeing what those are.

While all that was going on, Sam tracked down the dog fight ring and put a stop to the whole thing, rescuing Tommy from their trashy parents. There’s going to be a world of trouble from that choice, too.

And Jason tried to get some info about Crystal from her jailed cousin; he also managed to help get Summer more deeply ingrained into Hoyt’s life than he’d like.

So, what did you think of this week’s episode? And where do you think things are headed in the weeks ahead?